Frustrating employer
Gut am Arbeitgeber finde ich
The option of home office BUT this is now sold as a benefit, actually hiding the fact that pre-Covid, "simple" employees were only in very exceptional cases allowed to work from home.
The request for a compensation for increased expenses at home was rejected for the reason that "everyone has 15€ to charge a laptop", which many employees actually don't have!
To list something positive: if you can go to the office because you live close enough, you get free coffee, tea and water. You can also benefit from a partnership with some online-shops that grant you some discount, most shops are however too expensive (referring back to the low income).
Also, the product is a good one.
Schlecht am Arbeitgeber finde ich
Most points were mentioned above already but to sum it up:
- benefits: home office is listed as one but no compensations are in place for people that work from home. The office space was almost halved though!
- appropriate salary
- retention of employees
- approach to feedback
- some reviews praise the flat hierachies that are in place - where? And how is this beneficial at this company? At least it shows who's responsible for another denial of a pay raise or of hiring additional employees
- company values: they are non-existent. Officially, some values are in place, which look sweet on paper but reality looks different: nobody cares, c-level management does not lead by example. The main value that I can see is "all for profit - nothing for quality"
- one of the most important points: nothing is done to keep motivated, experienced employees. Negotiation of tasks and general working conditions lead nowhere and feedback from leaving employees is not taken into consideration to prevent further attrition. Maybe it's cheaper to hire someone new, who has no working experience
Verbesserungsvorschläge
Re-think your strategy! Either stop asking for our opinions and feedback or start learning to work with it. Lots of feedback was given f.ex. on behaviour of supervisors but no consequences came in place. Repeatedly, the salary topic came up but was ignored or even worse, management replied with sarcastic comments and told us to be more humble. Yes, we receive our paychecks on time and bills can be paid but nothing else can be paid with it and it does not reflect the responsibilities and workload we have. Compared to the job market, most positions are paid below-average, also within the same field. If you continue treating us like that, employees keep leaving. Work on your retention!
Arbeitsatmosphäre
Most colleagues are great, smart and supportive. However, you can sense the atmosphere of frustration amongst staff.
Kommunikation
Communication between most colleagues is fine. Communication across the company could be improved, e.g. clearer and more aligned processes between different departments.
Kollegenzusammenhalt
Colleagues are probably the best about this company.
Work-Life-Balance
Workload and pressure can be extremely high, which sometimes carries over to your private life.
Working hours are mostly flexible.
Vorgesetztenverhalten
Middle management is mostly great! The problem is higher management, that makes the relevant decisions.
High pressure is put on the lower ranks and they are ignorant towards feedback, although they constantly ask for it if different surveys.
Gleichberechtigung
There is no open discrimination of any "minorities" but nepotism is clearly happening.
Umgang mit älteren Kollegen
There are almost no older colleagues, so I give them the benefit of the doubt.
This however also shows one of the problems: nobody with lots of work experience would start working here (expections may of course apply for some rare, better-paid teams).
Arbeitsbedingungen
Many teams are under-staffed, which leads to very high workload and pressure.
Gehalt/Sozialleistungen
You better have some savings if you want to work at this company as the salary is hardly enough to pay your bills in a German city. Most salaries are way below average and pay raises happen in extremly rare cases and are marginal. This only works out for people who want to gain some work experience so they can apply for better jobs.
Image
The image within and outside of the company do not complay with each other. As mentioned above, a negative atmosphere is clearly visible within the company but staff is not heard.
Karriere/Weiterbildung
If you're at the right place at the right time and you know the right people, you can be quite successful at this company.